Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy: Beyond Male and Female

Gender essentialism has become increasingly polemical in contemporary orthodoxy, with debates over feminism, sexual orientation, marriage, family, adoption, and care of transgender individuals. This study offers an interdisciplinary critique of gender essentialism in the contemporary Orthodox Church, drawing on patristic reflections, personalist theological anthropology, gender and queer theory, and modern biological understandings of human sexual differentiation. It concludes by discussing theological implications related to the ordination of women, same-sex unions, sacramental understandings of marriage, definitions of family, and pastoral care for intersex, transgender, and nonbinary parishioners.

Format: Hardback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 26 June 2023
Publisher: Fordham University Press

Over the past generation, debates over sex and gender within contemporary orthodoxy have intensified, encompassing a wide range of topics. These discussions began with questions about the ordination of women and have since expanded to include feminism, sexual orientation, the sacrament of marriage, definitions of family, adoption of children, and care for transgender individuals. Preliminary responses to these issues are influenced by gender essentialism, the belief that male and female are ontologically fixed and incommensurate categories with distinct sets of characteristics and gifts for each sex. These categories then shape gender roles in the family, church, and society.

Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy provides an in-depth critique of gender essentialism within the context of the contemporary Orthodox Church, influenced by the "Paris School" of Russian émigré theologians and their followers. This book employs an interdisciplinary approach to engage with patristic reflections on sex and gender, personalist theological anthropology, insights from gender and queer theory, and modern biological understandings of human sexual differentiation. Despite these seemingly disparate discourses, Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy uncovers surprising points of convergence, as each line of thought rejects a strict gender binary in favor of more inclusive possibilities.

The study concludes by exploring theological implications of the findings presented, particularly in relation to the ordination of women to the priesthood, same-sex unions, and sacramental understandings of marriage, definitions of family, and pastoral care for intersex, transgender, and nonbinary parishioners. By examining these topics through the lens of gender essentialism, the book offers a fresh perspective on contemporary Orthodoxy and its relationship to gender and sexuality.

Weight: 570g
Dimension: 159 x 492 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781531501525